Is the Egyptian god Seth related to the Israelites?

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rakovsky
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Is the Egyptian god Seth related to the Israelites?

Post by rakovsky »

- Adam's son Seth as living in the same period as the Egyptian god Seth was being recorded in our first Egyptian records found:
Alexander Seinfeld writes:
According to Wikipedia,
  • The earliest representations of what may be the Set animal comes from a tomb dating to the Naqada I phase of the Predynastic Period (3790 BC–3500 BC), though this identification is uncertain. If these are ruled out, then the earliest Set-animal appears on a mace head of the King Scorpion, a protodynastic ruler. The head and the forked tail of the Set animal are clearly present.[9]
According to Jewish tradition, Adam's son Seth was born in 3631 BCE.

Therefore, at first glance, the dates support your hypothesis.
https://www.quora.com/Was-Seth-the-Egyp ... e-cognates
- Adam's son Seth and the Egyptian god Seth as possible cognates and inversions of the same Cain-Abel-Seth / Seth-Osiris-Abel story.
On Quora, Grant Hayes notes:
As for the god Seth, the consonantal framework of his name in Egyptian hieroglyphs - which did not typically represent vowels - was originally s-t-sh or s-t-kh . This name was heard and recorded as šutaḫ by ancient Babylonians who were in contact with Egypt; together these lines of evidence suggest a reconstruction of Sutash / Sutakh. Over time, the posttonic syllable would wear away to an open /a/, thus making the name Suta and ultimately Sut. The /u/ evolved into the /e/ the Greeks heard, nearly two millennia after the earliest writings of the name in hieroglyphs. So, by a lengthy route, we end up with Greek Σήθ for the Egyptian god...
https://www.quora.com/Was-Seth-the-Egyp ... e-cognates
So originally (when, 3000 BC or 2000 BC?), the Egyptian Seth was probably Sutash/Sutakh, and then it became "Set" (when, 1500 BC? 1 BC?). And the Greeks heard "Set" 2000 years later (when, 1000 or 1 BC?).

Hayes writes:
The Hebrew name we spell as Seth ( שִׁית ) is actually closer to sheeth or sheyth in sound, and was derived from a verb with a wide semantic range, encompassing actions like put, place, set down, lay hands on, apply, i.e. to position something manually. In Greek the Hebrew name was rendered as Σήθ .
There is only one letter "t" (Tau) in Hebrew, so why is the Hebrew name Seth pronounced Sheyth, instead of Sheyth? Since there is also only one S in Hebrew (the letter Ш / Sh), couldn't a word pronounced as "Set" in 1300 BC by Egyptians become written and pronounced Shet or Sheth by Hebrews?

Hayes concludes based on this information that the Greek "Set" is "homophonous (in Greek) with the Hebraic ancestor figure, but with a different origin." However, my hypothesis is that the Egyptian Sutash could have become pronounced as Set around the time that the Israelites wrote about Adam's son "Seth" in their Torah, and the Israelites could have Hebraicized Set into Sheth/Shayth.

- The Hebrew story of Cain, Abel, and Seth as being a version of the Egyptian story of Seth, Osiris, and Horus, wherein the Hebrew Cain stands in for the Egyptian Seth and the Hebrew Seth stands in for the Egyptian Horus:
Grant Hayes writes:
Seth was associated by the Egyptians with the foreign and the uncanny, and with the violent power of storms. The Egyptians’ interaction with West Semitic / Canaanite cultures, particularly from the Middle Kingdom onward, led to the equating of Seth with the storm god Baal venerated in those cultures, and he was paired with ‘wild’ foreign goddesses like Anat and Astarte. By contrast, the Hebraic ancestor Seth is associated with the orderly, pastoral line of Adamic descendants; an emblem of legitimacy and restitution after the primordial murder of the pious Abel. In that regard, Hebraic Seth resembles the Egyptian god Horus, who represents the continuity of legitimate succession after the murder of Osiris. Hebraic Seth assumes Abel’s role as the counter-type to the transgressive Cain, who, as a fratricide, is closer to the Egyptian Seth in character.
It makes sense that in this paradigm, the Hebrew Seth resembles Horus in the Egyptian story, rather than the Egyptian Seth. However, this does not prove that the Hebrew Seth is not related to the Egyptian one, because sometimes religions to make inversions of figures as they cross over from other religions or hold parts of them in common. The Devas and Ashuras of Persian/Iranian religion had the opposite moral role of the Devas and ashuras of Hinduism. Sometimes in the Tanakh it's said that the "gods" of other religions are "demons." In the Lord of Spirits podcast that I heard online, it's said that the giant "great men" and Nephilim of other ancient religions are cast as negative figures in the Hebrews' Tanakh. The Egyptians could theoretically see "Seth" as bad and belonging to wild tumult and foreigners in the time of the Semitic Hyksos invasion, whereas foreign Semites like the Hyksos might see the same god as positive.


- The Israelites could have imagined Jehovah using attributes of the Egyptian god Seth, who had been combined with the Canaanite Baal:
Izaak J. de Hulster writes:
Historians of religion... find abundant evidence that Yahweh was commonly imagined using attributes of other ancient Near Eastern gods, especially weather and solar deities. In the tradition of the exodus, for example, Yahweh is depicted as both a storm god and a warrior (see Exod 15)—features that are also present in the Egyptian Baal-Seth.
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passage ... -look-like
- Horus and Seth could be Jehovah and Behemoth who fight in Job 40.
K. Van Der Toorn writes in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible:
A number of authors have suggested that the confrontation between Yahweh and Behemoth in Job 40:15-24 is patterned upon the battle of Horus (Yahweh) against Seth (Behemoth). The description of Behemoth, then, would reflect aspects of Seth. The basis for the alleged parallelism is the fact that in some Egyptian texts the red hippopotamus symbolizes Seth. Other facets would corroborate the hypothesis. Thus the bones "like iron bars" which Behemoth is said to possess (Job 40:18) are reminiscent of the "bones of Seth" mentioned in the Pyramid texts and by Manetho. The tentative parallel between Behemoth and Seth has proved productive for the interpretation of the relevant passage, but remains hypothetical. In its defence... in the poetic description of Behemoth there are a significant nymber of traits that cannot very well apply to a mere animal: Behemoth does have supernatural dimensions...
- The Egyptian god Set becoming mixed with the Semitic Hyksos' god Baal, and Balaam's prophecy of Israel's "scepter" breaking the sons of Sheth/Seth/turmoil:

In his article "Seth, Sheth or Set the Egyptian 'god of chaos'?," Derek Gilbert notes Balaam's prophecy in Numbers 24:17, (ESV)
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab
and break down all the sons of Sheth.
(Hebrew for the last line: וְקַרְקַ֖ר כָּל־ בְּנֵי־ שֵֽׁת׃ )
He notes that one interpretation is that the passage refers to Israel's possibly Messianic "scepter" breaking the sons of "Seth", the Egyptian god. Two other common interpretations are:
(A) Sheth" here refers to Adam's son "Seth," (Hebrew: שֵׁת )which was Augustine's interpretation. The letter Ш here there has slightly different vowel pointing in the Masoretic, although I don't know how much difference that makes. Biblehub says that they are both pronounced "Shayth," as in Genesis 4:25's reference to Adam's son Seth.
(B) Sheth here might mean "tumult" instead of being a proper noun, so that "sons of Seth" could refer to the "sons of tumult." Sheth doesn't seem to mean "tumult" elsewhere in the Bible, although it could have that etymological meaning.

Going along with the theory that Balaam is referring to the sons of the Egyptian god Seth, Gilbert writes:
First, consider the possibility that the sons of Sheth are followers of a pagan god. Seth and Sheth are alternate transliterations of the name of Egyptian chaos-god, Set (also spelled Sutekh, Setekh, and Setesh). During Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period, Lower Egypt (that is, northern Egypt) was ruled by a Semitic-speaking people called the Hyksos, who were almost certainly Amorites. The most important god in their pantheon was Baal, who was merged by the Hyksos with Set.

The timing of the end of the Hyksos era in Egypt is fuzzy, but most scholars place it about a hundred years or so before the Exodus. They were driven out after a series of wars led by native Egyptian rulers based at Thebes. While it would be convenient to think that the Hyksos were utterly destroyed by the Egyptians or simply disappeared from history, that’s unlikely. It’s more probable that they were driven out of Egypt into Arabia or the Transjordan, absorbed into the native Egyptian population, or a bit of both. Since the worship of Baal-Set continued in Egypt for at least two hundred years after the Exodus, long after the fall of the Hyksos kingdom, that may be closest to what happened.

Is it possible that the prophecy refers to David’s defeat of Set-worshiping desert nomads southeast of the Dead Sea? Maybe.

https://allpropastors.org/seth-sheth-or ... -of-chaos/
Grant Hayes notes:
The original meaning of the god Seth’s name (as with several others) in Egyptian cannot be recovered straightforwardly. Already in ancient times it was the subject of pseudo-etymologies devised by the Egyptians themselves. One of these etymologies came down to the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (1st and 2nd centuries AD), who - in his De Iside et Osiride - claimed that Seth meant ‘overpowering’. Egyptian punning as far back as the Coffin Texts (c.2000 BC) played on the similarity of Seth’s name to a word for ‘cutting in pieces’. Indeed, in the Coffin Texts Seth’s name can be replaced by a hieroglyphic sign representing a cutting or digging tool meaning ‘to separate’ (Gardiner Aa21).
https://www.quora.com/Was-Seth-the-Egyp ... e-cognates
This reminds me of the breaking down of the Sons of Sheth in Numbers 24, since the Hebrew word for breaking down here also means digging, according to BibleHub. That would go along with an idea that Numbers 24 could be making a play on words with the Egyptian meaning of the name of Sheth. Hayes also writes:
Both Plutarch’s and the older etymologies served to depict the essence of Seth’s character as it developed in dynastic Egypt: an overwhelming, turbulent, disorienting force; a divine transgressor who dismembered the archetypal good king Osiris.
This goes along with the Hebrew meaning of tumult for the Hebrew word Sheth in Hebrew.

- The Egyptians Seth's association with donkeys and Egyptian portrayals - apparently negative - of Israelite worship as associated with donkeys, and the Hyksos invaders' dedication to Seth:

In his essay "The contrast between Jew and Zhou People(周人)," Bohai Xu writes:
In art, Set is usually depicted as an enigmatic creature referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal, a beast resembling no known
creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, a jackal, or a fennec fox. ... The Egyptians themselves, however, made a distinction between the giraffe and the Set animal. During the Late Period, Set is depicted as a donkey or as having a donkey's head(te Velde 1967, pp. 13–15).
The Egyptians like Manetho portrayed the Israelites as worshiping donkeys or having a donkey head in their temple. These typically have been preserved in ancient polemics against Judaism. Josephus argued against these portrayals in his work "Against Apion."

Still, there could be some special associations between the Israelites and donkeys in a religious context. In the Torah, Balaam rides a donkey/ass, and strike it, and it miraculously talks, asking Balaam why he did that. The story reminds me a bit of pagan religions' associations between specific deities and their animals, like Shiva riding a bull. Zechariah 9:9 has a prophecy about Judah's king riding a donkey and Christianity sees this prophecy as fulfilled with Jesus' entrance on a donkey in to Jerusalem.

Bohai Xu also writes:
During the Second Intermediate Period (1650–1550 BCE), a group of Near Eastern peoples, known as the Hyksos (literally, "rulers of foreign lands") gained control of Lower Egypt, and ruled the Nile Delta, from Avaris. They chose Set, originally Upper Egypt's chief god, the god of foreigners and the god they found most similar to their own chief god, Hadad, as their patron. Set then became worshiped as the chief god once again. The Hyksos King Apophis is recorded as worshiping Set exclusively, as described in the following passage: [He] chose for his Lord the god Seth. He did not worship any other deity in the whole land except Seth.
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Re: Egyptian god Seth ... Thank you!

Post by billd89 »

Not exactly "Israelites." I suppose the Sethians mentioned by Josephus were (quasi-Jewish) syncretistic Semites of a Chaldean ancestry long resident in Egypt. I think it's too speculative and unnecessary to reach so far back to the Hyksos (c.1500 BC), but the Nile Delta may well be the same area the 'Sethians' inhabited c.350 BC? Philo seems well-aware of Sethian beliefs but cautious not to reveal too much: why?

I suppose the Sethian element was already less precise/organized/defined in Philo's day: older, blended, and more of an oral tradition among regional and rural Egyptian farmer 'Jews'. I do need to study this more, but what I've surveyed so far suggests NO CONSENSUS whatsoever among leading scholars. It's all debatable...

I'm curious about any possible correspondence with the Ophites, perhaps they were a proximate desert-variant (Eastern Desert/Negev) ???

Link to another thread here. To speak of Jewish Sethians is to admit a plurality of Judaisms c.350 BC - 150 AD.
rakovsky wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 12:50 pm - The Egyptian god Set becoming mixed with the Semitic Hyksos' god Baal, and Balaam's prophecy of Israel's "scepter" breaking the sons of Sheth/Seth/turmoil:

In his article "Seth, Sheth or Set the Egyptian 'god of chaos'?," Derek Gilbert notes Balaam's prophecy in Numbers 24:17, (ESV)
... a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab
and break down all the sons of Sheth.
(Hebrew for the last line: וְקַרְקַ֖ר כָּל־ בְּנֵי־ שֵֽׁת׃ )
He notes that one interpretation is that the passage refers to Israel's possibly Messianic "scepter" breaking the sons of "Seth", the Egyptian god. Two other common interpretations are:
(A) Sheth" here refers to Adam's son "Seth," (Hebrew: שֵׁת )which was Augustine's interpretation. The letter Ш here there has slightly different vowel pointing in the Masoretic, although I don't know how much difference that makes. Biblehub says that they are both pronounced "Shayth," as in Genesis 4:25's reference to Adam's son Seth.
(B) Sheth here might mean "tumult" instead of being a proper noun, so that "sons of Seth" could refer to the "sons of tumult." Sheth doesn't seem to mean "tumult" elsewhere in the Bible, although it could have that etymological meaning.
Ezekiel's Exagoge (c.150-75 BC?) has Moses receiving a scepter from a Nobleman-Melchizedek character; Melchizedek is widely associated w/ Biblical Shem (discussed on prior threads), a rival priesthood/cult?
Grant Hayes notes:
The original meaning of the god Seth’s name (as with several others) in Egyptian cannot be recovered straightforwardly. Already in ancient times it was the subject of pseudo-etymologies devised by the Egyptians themselves. One of these etymologies came down to the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (1st and 2nd centuries AD), who - in his De Iside et Osiride - claimed that Seth meant ‘overpowering’. Egyptian punning as far back as the Coffin Texts (c.2000 BC) played on the similarity of Seth’s name to a word for ‘cutting in pieces’. Indeed, in the Coffin Texts Seth’s name can be replaced by a hieroglyphic sign representing a cutting or digging tool meaning ‘to separate’ (Gardiner Aa21).
https://www.quora.com/Was-Seth-the-Egyp ... e-cognates
Melchizedek is definitely associated w/ Logos attributes, and Philo (c.30 AD?) seems particularly eager to revise or represent the abstracted Logos-Minus-Melchizedek whenever possible (discussed on prior threads). Philo also develops a Logos-Cutter theme, as Seth may have held a similar centrality in the Sethian/Barbelo myth-complex (a Sethian cult, Seth as Logos?) of a rival Jewish cult.
- The Egyptians Seth's association with donkeys and Egyptian portrayals - apparently negative - of Israelite worship as associated with donkeys, and the Hyksos invaders' dedication to Seth:
In his essay "The contrast between Jew and Zhou People(周人)," Bohai Xu writes:
In art, Set is usually depicted as an enigmatic creature referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal, a beast resembling no known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, a jackal, or a fennec fox. ... The Egyptians themselves, however, made a distinction between the giraffe and the Set animal. During the Late Period, Set is depicted as a donkey or as having a donkey's head(te Velde 1967, pp. 13–15).
The Egyptians like Manetho portrayed the Israelites as worshiping donkeys or having a donkey head in their temple. These typically have been preserved in ancient polemics against Judaism. Josephus argued against these portrayals in his work "Against Apion."
Still, there could be some special associations between the Israelites and donkeys in a religious context.
This is highly plausible, despite the almost shrieking denials of many scholars. I would qualify: 'Seth-worshippers' were probably a diverse agglomeration of relic, rural, indigenous & heterodox Semites in part of Egypt (c.275 BC), not the culturally-advanced & Palestine Jews of Josephus' day (90 AD). The 'Seth' mythos had long been transformed & refined when Josephus addressed it.
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Re: Is the Egyptian god Seth related to the Israelites?

Post by rakovsky »

There are some long articles that discuss the topic.

The following Open Court article talks about the connection that at least some people (eg. Sethian Gnostics) made between Seth and Christ:
Anubis, Seth, and Christ. The Significance of the " Spott-Crucifix. "—The Religious Significance of the Ass. —The Lead Tablets of the Via Appia. With Illustrations from Egyptian and Roman Archaeology.
...
The Egyptian god Seth (whom the Christian Gnostics later confounded with Adam's son Seth) was believed to be the god that could do great harm ; thus he was highly respected, and his name was used more than that of any other deity for exorcisms of all kinds. He was above all the god of those who depended much on good fortune and had reason to be afraid of ill-luck. So it is but natural that the charioteers in the circus-races, which in the beginning of the Christian era played a prominent part in public life, were his ardent worshippers.
...
The close relation between the God of the Semitic Hyksos and Typhon-Seth is an established fact, and it appears now that not only the names of Baal, but also of Sabbaoth and even of Yahveh were frequently identified with this powerful war god of Lower Egypt. In the first centuries of the Christian era Christian influ- ence made itself felt, and Typhon-Seth was confounded with Seth the son of Adam, who was revered as a prototype and prior incarnation of Jesus Christ.

https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewco ... ontext=ocj
The Open Court article quotes the scholar Wunsch as saying:
"But if our tablets do in fact present Sethian doctrine, we have for a Gnostic sect two gods of the same name Seth, the Egyptian
god Typhon-Seth, who is essentially like the Jewish Sabaoth, and Seth, the son of Adam, who is the Jewish Christ, and the question
arises, what the relation is of these two divine beings to each other. And I believe, in view of the widespread tendency of that age to assimilation, that the two beings thus related by name could not possibly have remained separate any length of time; a personal union was inevitable, and thus Typhon-Seth, the ass-headed, and Christ-Seth, the crucified, became one and the same being.
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewco ... ontext=ocj

The weakness in this argument is that just because the Sethian Gnostics in the early Christian period confounded the Egyptian god Seth with the Torah's Seth doesn't mean that the Israelites associated them. Still, I think that it's a hint in this direction.

"The Egyptian Gods in Midrashic Texts" by Rivka Ulmer looks like perhaps a good article on the topic.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40731063?seq=1

"Seth in the Magical Texts" by Jarl Fossum and Brian Glazer seems to cast doubt on the Egyptian god Seth being related to the Torah's Seth
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20189012?seq=1

I think that they are probably related, but am not fully sure. It seems to me that the Hebrew name for the Egyptian god Seth would have been written practically the same in the Torah's Hebrew as the name for Adam's son Seth (The Hebrew Tau and the Shin Ш). The main possible differentiating point that I know of could be the vowels (e / i in the Egyptian Seth and ey / ay in the Hebrew one.)

The second main factor besides the similarities in the name is the similarity that I read in a somewhat persuasive article between the stories of Cain, Abel, and Seth on one hand and Seth, Osiris, and Horus, respectively, on the other hand.

The third factor is knowing that there is major overlap in foundational stories in the Israelite, Egyptian, and Babylonian religions, like the shared flood stories between the Israelites and the Babylonians.

The fourth main factor is how the Israelites are often theorized to be from the Semitic Hyksos, whom the Egyptians recorded as being worshipers of the god Seth.
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Re: Is the Egyptian god Seth related to the Israelites?

Post by Japhethite »

It is possible that the Egyptian Set and Set race may match the line of Seth in the Bible, though I'm not sure whether the 2 persons names share cognate origins.

Set/Seth is son or son-in-law of Re/Ra [= Atum god of setting sun] in some accounts (Egyptian). Set was "protector of Ra", and defended Ra against Apophis. Ra often took Set's side in the dispute with Horus.

Seth is son of Adam/Awdawm "red" (Biblical).

Set/Seth/Sut is father of Anubis/Anpu/Anup in some accounts (Egyptian).

Seth is father of Enosh/Anesh "mortal man" (Biblical).

Set is the 1st of the 3 Hermes Set, Shu/Num, Thoth/Horus (Egyptian). The 3 Hermes may roughly match the 3 Kingdoms Old, Middle, New.

Seth is the 1st of the 3 reincarnations Seth [or Shem], Moses, Samuel/David (Jewish). These 3 reincarnations seem match Joseph was in the Old Kingdom, Moses in the Middle, & David in the New Kingdom.
(Or the 3 Hermes might match 3 sons of Noah: Shem/Seth (Set), Japheth/Diphath (Thoth/Djehewty), Ham (Num who is linked with Amun/Hammon) or Noah (Num)?)

Set/Typhon is associated with red hair/complexion/eyes (Egyptian). Joseph may be Djedefre whose statue is red, and the statue of Setka his son is mixed red and black. (Setka might be Shuthelah?)

Adam was "red", Esau/Edom was red. David was "ruddy" (Biblical).
Jews are Mediterranid/Mediterranean, as were the Egyptians who called themselves the "red" race.

Khasekhemwy has both Horus and Seth in his Horus name. Khasekhemwy has a number of possible matches with Joseph/Zaphenath-paneah.

Set/Typhon is associated with the northern/circumpolar stars (Egyptian).

Israel is north of Egypt. Mount of congregation is in the north/saphon (Isa 14:13).

Set is either the son or nephew or half brother of Qeb/Keb/Geb the earth god who might match En-ki (Egyptian). (Set is son of Geb & Nut, or son of Ra & Nut. Geb is son of Shu & Tefnut, or son of Ra/Atum. Qeb/Keb/Geb/Seb may match either Cain, Eve/Chavah, Gibbor/Gheber (Nimrod), Gabriel, Seba, or Shem.)

Seth is younger brother of Cain the tiller of the soil who may match En-ki (Biblical).

Set vs Osiris, Set vs Horus, Set race vs Horus race (Egyptian)

Cain vs Abel, "Caintes vs Sethites" (Bible). Setian vs Ophite (Gnostic).

In each and every nation/religion they themselves are "in"/"men" and others are "out"/"nonmen" (or beast/monster), with rivals/enemies having vice-versa/converse/inverse/switched/dualistic points of view and demonizing the other side. (Compare Indian Asuras & Devas and Iranian Ameshas/"Ahuras" & Devas.)

Egyptians are "in" and Hebrews/Israelites/Jews are "out" in Egyptian.
Osiris/Horus is "in" and Set/Typhon is "out".
Set is associated with foreigners/out.

Hebrews are "in" and Egyptians are "out" in Biblical.

Seth/Sutekh is an enemy of Osiris who is similar to Nimrod (Egyptian).

Shem is also called Seth or identified with Seth (Biblical). Shem is also probably the same as Melchi-zedek.
Shem is supposed to have been an enemy of Nimrod/Asshur.

Horus wounded in eye, Set wounded in testicles or thigh (Egyptian).

Seed of serpent wounded head, seed of woman wounded in heel (Biblical). (Jesus had no wife or children.) (Jacob associated with heel & thigh.)

Thoth/Djehewty sprang from the head of Set in some accounts (Egyptian). Thoth is mediator in conflict between Set & Horus.

Japheth/Diphath was a descendant of Seth; Japheth was elder brother of Shem/"Seth"; Japheth comes after Shem/"Seth" in Noah's blessing (Biblical).

Set the 1st Hermes set up the Siriadic columns in the Siriadic Land to survive flood & fire (Egyptian). (Compare Surid of Masudi.)

Seth comes before the Flood (Biblical, Josephus).

Set/Typhon is buried in Serbonis bog/lake (Egyptian).

Hebrews passed through the "Red Sea" (Biblical).

80 yrs Set vs Osiris (Egyptian).

80 yrs Moses (Biblical)?

Set is associated with Upper Egypt which was more desertly/desertish (Egyptian).

Hebrews/Israelites associated with the wilderness/desert (Biblical).

Set's/Typhon's animal might be a donkey/ass or pig or aardvark or okapi (mule & giraffe) or jerboa (mouse-like midget kangaroo) or massive dog/fox, or composite ass body & jackal ears/snout & lion tail (Egyptian).

Hebrews & Jesus are connected with donkeys/asses. "Statue of Moses on an ass in the temple". Jews don't eat pork (Biblical).

Two sons of Set/Typhon (Egyptian). (Compare the Osarsiph story of Manetho.)

Two sons of Moses (Biblical).

Set/Typhon is identified with Apophis/Apep. The companions/children of Apophis ("god of darkness") in the El-Arish inscription are similar to the "adversaries of Re" in the legend of Horus of Edfu, and both are similar to the Hebrews of the Exodus story. (Some also link Tawi-Thom of the El-Arish inscription with Typhon.)

Set/Sutekh is associated with the Semitic Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings" (Egyptian).

The Semitic Hebrews/Israelites (who were shepherds) are often confounded with the Hyksos. (The exodus seems to have been at end of 12th dynasty just before Hyksos invasion.) Set is the 6th in the predynastic dynasty of 7 or 10 god-kings of Manetho, and the god-kings might be parallel with dynastic history with Set roughly matching time of exodus and/or Hyksos.

Set is identified with Balu/Baal or Hadad? (Egyptian). (Though actually Set is more like Mot.)

Baal is a god of the Canaanites & Phoenicians just north of and right next door to Israel. The Israelites sometimes worshipped Baal between Judges and Kings/Chronciles. Elohim/Yhwh is called Baali in one bible verse. Baal means "lord/master", modern Jews replace Yhwh/Jhvh with Adonai which similarly means "lord" (and is related to the Phoenician Adonis). Baal Zephon in Exodus story.
Some equate Hadad with Shaddai.

Set is identifed with Typhon (Egyptian/Greek).

Baal-Zephon in Exodus story (Bible).

Set/Sutekh/Typhon is a god of the sky, storm clouds, thunder (Egyptian), weather (Hittite).

Compare El/Yhwh sent the Flood. Compare El Shaddai. Compare exodus events (Biblical).

Set is husband of Anat/Anaitis and Astarte (Egyptian).

Anat & Astarte are goddesses of the Canaanite & Phoenician neighbours of the Israelites.
In late Israelite & Judahite religion El/Yhwh is associated with Asherah or Anat (Biblical).
Joseph's wife was Asenath.

Set is thought to have originally been a sky or sun god (Egyptian). Set's name has been suggested to mean "overpowering/powerful" or "to separate" or "digging tool" or "cutting in pieces".

Seth's name means "appointed" or "tumult" or "put, place, set down, lay hands on" (Biblical). [Elohim "appointed" the sun & moon to rule over the day & night?]

Set is assoicated with the Sethroite nome, north-east Delta, Avaris which are in the closest part of Egypt to Israel/Palestine (Egyptian).

Many scholars believe that Goshen, Rameses/Raamses, Pithom, Zoan, Soccoth, Yam Suph were in the north-east delta (Biblical) (though I dispute this).

Set was originally a beneficent god, a sky or sun god, and resided inthe abode of the dead.

Favoured preflood line of Seth in Genesis (Biblical).
Shem/"Seth" blessed by Noah.
Joseph saved Egypt from famine.

Set associated with drought.

Famines of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph.

Set's/Typhon's wife/queen is Aso. Isis/Aset sometimes favoured Seth in the conflict with Horus.

Seth was son of Eve aka Ash/Isha. Seth's wife is Asura/Azura in Jubilees. Joseph's wife Asenath. Ano wife of Jeroboam (Septuagint)?

Set might be connected with the moon god Suen/Sin (Egypt)?

Seth "appointed" might be connected with moon god Suen/Sin (Bible)?

Set/Typhon associated with number 56. (Compare Cheops/Khufu 50 yrs & Chephren/Khafre 56 yrs. 52 degrees Pyramid.)

Jubilee/Penetcost of 49/50 yrs/days (Bible).
Joseph lived 110 yrs.
Jacob matches Khufu/Cheops.

Alford reckons Bent Pyramid maybe connects with Set (Egyptian)?

Bent Pyramid might represent the 7 yrs plenty & 7 yrs famine of Joseph (Bible)?

"Osiris came from Nubia in the 365th year of his reign accompanied by Horus, to chase Set out of Egypt" (Egyptian).
(Copmare "The events in the legend of Horus (of Edfu/Behdeti) versus the adversaries of Re(-Harakhty) are said to have taken place in the year 363 in the reign of Re-Harakhty." Compare companions of Apophis in the El-Erish inscription (compared by some with the exodus).
Compare "393 years Hyksos driven out before Danaus".
Compare Set reigned 350 yrs (Manetho). Compare 350 yrs chaos Manetho.

Exodus 400/430 or "215" yrs after Joseph (Biblical)?

When Horus killed by Set Isis cries and sun halts (Egypt).

Joshua halts sun 40 yrs after exodus (Bible).

The Shetiyah foundation stone of the world on the Temple Mount might be related to Set?

Jesus is reincarnation of Seth in some Judaeo-Christian theories (Biblical).

Set/Typhon & 70/72 conspirators against Osiris.

Jesus sentenced to death by 70/72 Sanhedrim.
(Compare similar scene in [Judge Dread?])

(I'm not saying the Biblical Seth came from the Egyptian Set, only that possibly one or the other came from the other or the one (more likely the Egyptian from pre-Biblical) or both from a common original.)

Osiris and Horus also have parallels with Jesus too. But there are corrupt/inverse analogies of biblical details in all mythologies and religions. In biblical the Hebrew line is the good/in, in Egyptian the Egyptian side is the good/in.

The sons of Sheth or "sons of tumult (of war)" of Numbers 24 might possibly relate to Shittim or the Suteans of Mesopotamian or the Amu of Shut of Egyptian (Khnumhotep, 12th dyn) or the Hyksos?
Japhethite
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Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 2:39 am

Re: Is the Egyptian god Seth related to the Israelites?

Post by Japhethite »

Just a few more from checking further on biblical Seth outside bible.

Set/Typhon is associated with the number 56 (angles/degrees).

Seth had 56 children (33 sons & 23 daughters).

Set's/Typhon's animal is a strange beast.

Seth is attacked and bitten by a wild beast which goes away when ordered by Seth.

Set is a god of death/darkness. Set was given rule of the night.

Adam said to Seth "Thou hast brought us great wrath which is death".
Seth is associated with night prayer in Islam.

Set only ate lettuce (Egypt).

Seth was before the Flood when they didn't eat meat, and was brother of Cain the tiller of the soil.
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